Levelling Guitar Fingerboard Divot Fill

The ebony sawdust fill has dried. Now I can scrape the fill to get it nearly level to the fingerboard.

I put some Scotch tape on the ends of a single-edge razor blade, leaving a small amount of the blade exposed in the center. The tape is just a couple of thousandths of an inch (or a millimeter...) thick. So the fill will be level, but a tiny bit higher than the fingerboard.  That's why I said "nearly" level.  If it's a little proud of the board, it's easy to sand down to make it perfectly smooth and level.

After it's scraped level, I can sand the fill smooth.

I used 600, then 800 and 1000 grit paper (dry) for this.

The fingerboard has a radius, so I used a small hunk of cork as a sanding block. The cork follows the shape of the board pretty well.

The finished fills.

They look pretty good. There are one or two spots with tiny cracks in them - I may or may not go back with some filler again.

This I will ponder. Overall, it's a great improvement over the divots that were there before.

I hate divots in fingerboards.

We're getting close to being able to reglue the fingerboard extension to the neck (and body).

I reglued the binding back on.

A small length of binding also popped off side of the neck. I filled the ledge with regular Titebond, and also brushed some acetone onto the binding where it separated at a marker dot.

Maybe the acetone will help to melt the pieces together. Or not. It's just a shot in the dark. If I still have a crack/seam there after it all dries, I'll try to fill it.

Put some waxed paper around the neck, and clamp the binding down.

So check this out.

I was reading on the Interwebs about this classic book on sharpening. I wound up buying it and just got it yesterday.

It looks pretty amazing. Not only how to sharpen the tools I use (chisels, scrapers, planes) but also knives and saws! Should be a great reference.